Serbian president says his nation will never back Kosovo's independence

Boris Tadic told The Associated Press in a wide-ranging interview Tuesday that joining the European Union was the only way forward for Serbia after years of wars and international isolation that turned the Balkan republic into a pariah state during the 1990s.

"I will do all in my power to secure a European future for Serbia," Tadic said. "That would secure progress and prevent the longtime stagnation of Serbia in comparison to other countries in the region."

"We must not isolate ourselves from the European Union, the West and Russia. We should conduct our policies relying on those three foreign policy pillars," he added.

Impoverished and worn out by conflicts and international sanctions, Serbia must speed up pro-Western reforms and work to improve living standards for its citizens, said Tadic, who is the leader of the main reformist group in the country.

To do that, Tadic acknowledged, Serbia must arrest the remaining war crimes suspects sought by a U.N. court — including the No. 1 most-wanted fugitive, former Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic, who remains at large despite huge international pressure for his capture.

"We must move faster toward the EU. We must remove the obstacles," Tadic said. "There should be no compromise about that."

But although Tadic remains the most popular politician in Serbia, his reformist Democratic Party did not win enough votes in January's general elections to form a government on its own. Coalition talks with other pro-Western groups have been stalled, leading to a political crisis.

There has also been a rise in support for extremists loyal to the country's late autocratic president, Slobodan Milosevic, who have exploited Serbs' frustration over Western plans to grant independence to Kosovo. Most Serbs cherish the southern province as the cradle of their statehood.

Serbia's leaders repeatedly have warned that Kosovo's independence could lead to the return of the nationalists to power, push Serbia back into isolation and undermine hard-won regional stability and reconciliation.

Tadic expressed fresh defiance over Kosovo on Tuesday.

Serbia, he said, can never permanently give up its right to the province, even though it was forced to relinquish control after NATO launched air attacks in 1999 to force Milosevic to end a crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists there.

Kosovo has been a U.N. protectorate since 1999, but Serbia argues that its formal right to the territory should be acknowledged despite the war.

"Serbia will never agree to independence for Kosovo," Tadic said. "We will not give up any right that is granted to any other country in the world."

Tadic criticized a plan by chief U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari that envisages internationally supervised independence for Kosovo, and called instead for a renewal of talks to find a solution for the contested region.

"The Ahtisaari plan is not the Holy Bible," he said. "Serbia is open for a compromise ... but we are not ready to give up part of our integrity and identity."

"There is very little time" for Serbia to try to win international support for its bid to keep Kosovo, Tadic conceded, but added: "It must take the initiative in that short period of time."

Serbia does not want to rule Kosovo economically or politically, but will not accept it becoming an independent state, he said.

Yet Serbia's efforts to block final approval of the Ahtisaari plan at the U.N. Security Council "should not lead to destruction of our relations" with the United States and its Western allies who have supported the blueprint, Tadic said.

"Serbia's house is the European Union," he said. The Associated Press

/The International Herald Tribune/